kaberett | vital functions (Reply)

Reading. Finished The Way Out, Alan Gordon "with" Alon Ziv. I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS AND THEY'RE MOSTLY GRUMPY. Longer thoughts to follow, maybe even sometime within the foreseeable future, but to get the positives out of the way first: the foreword (I think? rather than the introduction? book's on the sofa and I'm not, I'll double-check for the proper write-up) does at least say that they don't yet know which illnesses and people this will actually work for, and is appropriately guarded about actual scope; I'm going to find some of the referenced literature useful, notwithstanding that a frankly shocking amount of it is over 20 years old; it's not exactly that the actual described approach is incorrect.

BUT GOOD GRIEF. The apparently-petty complaint first: all of the examples the guy produces that aren't anecdotes about specific (consenting) patients? Masculine-as-default. Up to and including THE THREE HYPOTHETICAL IMAGINARY ZEBRAS ON ZEBRA INSTAGRAM. The larger, underlying complaint, which lurks beneath and wears this one as an approachable hat: given that e.g. endometriosis is thought to affect circa 10-15% of menstruating people, and given that menstrual migraine is one of the more intractable forms to treat, and given the realities of hypermobility syndromes, and given that chronic pain is more common in (approximately) people with oestrogen-dominated endocrine systems, IT MIGHT BE NICE if the guy exhibited the SLIGHTEST awareness that People Generally Designated Female, you know, exist.

Because that is also the big complaint/Ugh My Gestating Book Does Have Useful Things To Say, right: that he's blithely announcing how amazingly well this entire approach works and just... not... engaging at all... with ANY of the conditions that actually involve repeated injury or tissue damage or or or. And I know this "coexistence of chronic [neuroplastic] pain with acute pain and how you even deal with that" is my whole Thing but gosh if this doesn't get me in the I Can't Read Suddenly??? academic feelings and the I'm Being Gaslit By A Pain Clinic feelings and all the other Feelings, which are of course why I want My Book to exist in the world even as I do not particularly relish the concept of writing it.

I know about this dude because he keeps pushing his Pain Reprocessing Therapy thing, see, which is what this book is about. It's essentially Kabat-Zinn-style mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, but with the scope restricted beyond the point that's actually a good idea (no, seriously though, if you want people to learn how to observe their body and sensations curiously and nonjudgementally telling them that there's no benefit to engaging in "somatic tracking" when they're not in pain is SO MINDBLOWINGLY WRONG--) and with a frankly stunning lack of acknowledgement of the extent to which it's Slap A New Label On And Charge Desperate People Money For It. I am extremely glad I bought second-hand.

... yeah I have a lot of opinions.

Most of the way through: Coast, Rachel Allen, Recipes from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way. Eventually got to the top of the library's hold queue on this one having stumbled across it via some combination of browsing the Oxfam food section and Eat Your Books; was utterly baffled at the presence of avocado. Having now read most of it the avocado makes slightly more sense (she's building recipes around specific Irish-origin ingredients, but not restricting what else she brings in) but also this is a travelogue composed mainly of the phrase "one of the country's [superlative] X" (I exaggerate only slightly) and at least as far as things I've read recently go for my money (i.e. council tax) Felicity Cloake provides a much better example of the genre.

Halfway through, continuing to enjoy and half-remember snippets of: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

Playing. I Love Hue: neaaaaaaaarly done with The Alchemy.

Cooking. Underwhelmed by ricotta and rosemary bread pudding, which is somewhat unfair of me given how egregiously I deviated from the actual written ingredients, but hey, A likes it.

This evening I have technically done another Meera Sodha recipe, but it requires sitting overnight and I'm not going to eat it anyway so I have very little to report on that front.

Several rounds of Pasta With Green And Also Lemon.

Eating. Such treats as Frozen Thai Green Curry, post-field CAKE, three-cornered leek, MINT, and the occasional nibble of leafs.

Exploring. The chunk of National Cycle Route 1 that runs alongside the local Tall Water! Hurrah for towpaths and locks and so on and so forth. Excellent clematis. Many other excellent things too, but clematis in particular.

Growing. Radishes coming up! Redcurrant looking extremely promising! Raspberries ditto! PEAS abruptly trying quite hard to be Luxuriant; strawberries setting fruit; not all of the tiny beetroot I planted out have died; tentatively excited about chillis; cherry tree also COVERED in small green fruit swelling from the ruins of the blossom.

So much grass. So much bindweed. I'm letting the dandelions flower and then attempting to deadhead before they actually set seed, with mixed success.

... three loofa hatched, which is more than I was expecting! Alas my Sibley seedlings are Not Doing Well so I might have another go at those. Really REALLY want to get the shed Erected before the greenhouse gets any more full. Aaaaaaaaand it's time for bed.